Letter #13

hanks for Leslies E-mail I will look into the people she gave us. The work is so great and crazy right now. We have over 550 refferals from the temple. We have so many people interested we don't even know what to do them. We are doing our best to contact all of them. (I don't feel super busy because i can't make any of the phone calls so my poor companion is just getting whipped into shape) Okay well I am going to give you a low down of my life. I wrote my day to day things i wanted to tell you and brought it! Yeay for good thinking!

Tuesday- We had District meeting and while we were spending hours sorting through all the refferalls two random people came into tghe church wanting more info. Sandra is from India and she is visitng her son that lives her and brought his freinds Natia and Sandra only spoke English and Natia spoke Ukrainian so I taught in Rnglish and Sister R taught in Ukrainian. It was so sand because she wanted more info and to come to church but she was going back to india before Sunday. I was stupid and didn't get her contact info but hopefully we can get it through her son. After we taugh another lesson in English to Maria. it was sweet she just wanted to be our friend but as a good friend would helped her by giving her the gospel. It was an incredible lesson I really felt the spirit. I told her she can have help with making decisions throught the Holy Ghost and read moroni's Promise with her. Even though it was outsid eand it smelt nasty and there were limping stray dogs barking and roaming around and the noise of the street and people giving weird looks I still knew the spirit was there. It was incredible.

Wednesday- I WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!!!!! Oh wow! Thats all I can say it was the most amazing experience. I was so touched by the dedication of the Kiev people! The whole temple was full for the session. Of course it is smaller than any you have ever been in but it was outstanding. I had headsets so I could listen in English but wow it was just amazing to see the power of the people here. There was so much love there. The missionaries that serve in the temple are so cute. It hard to run the temple because of the language barrier but they are getting it to work! Its funny though the english ladies are the sweetest! So after the temple we had tons of meetings set up but there was a lady that walked into the church wanting more info too. We gave her a BoM and told her we would meet the next day and them we went off to our lessons. We taught a lady while walking around in the woods while her childern played. It's hard not knowing what is being said and not speaking it frustrates me but I can feel the spirit during the lessons so tha is great. We then called maria from yesterday. She was so excited. She recieved an answer she knew what she was going to do with her life but most importantly she prayed and knows the BoM is true! Wow it was so cool. She said she was feeling so much peace and contentment. :) I was so excited for her! Then we mentioned baptism and she got a little iffy she knows she would have to change her life too much I think. So we are trying to work with her more.

Thursday- Zone conference. 1st Zone Conference was good. I am not scared of President Steinagel He is so great. I loke him a lot he has a lot of enthusiasm for the work and loves to tell stories. He is wonderful. We are working on the new way to do Preach my Gospel. There was a lot of new stuff we are working on like- teach by reading the BoM together and baptise everyone :) ha ha I guess that hasn't changed but its just being stressed more. We had the best Pizza ever. I love Pizza! ja ja Oh that reminds me Sister Robinson is good at Eating healthy. So I am being more healthy but we do love us some Peanut Buuter. :) ha ha some Americans brought us it. It was the best thing ever. I thnk that will be one of the things i miss the most! :) Well after ZC we were going to meet with the lady fromt he day before. She came in and gave us the BoM back. :( I know sad. But she seemed so perfect it was really interesting. But we told her to keep the book and read and she said she would and left. I am sure it would not be as confusing if I understood Russian and Ukrainian but I don't yet so I just watched and made up the conversation in my head. It is more interesting that way sometimes. ha ha ha ha I feel like a little kid except that I understand I am incompitent and useless. I think I would choose to be ingorant to my incompitance but thats okay. Ignorance is not bliss but neither is not knowing the language you are surrounded by. :)

Friday-I was dead tired and irratated by everything, I wanted to cry, instead I laughed. We got loast and walked around for a hour just in order to get dogged by a lady. ha ha then we went to meet with a lady and it was incredible she read 1ts and 2nd Nephi... the both th e WHOLE books! Incredible right! wow! she is amazing but then half way through talking with her, her friends grabbed us and took us to her apartment upstairs and had us eat and drink and talk but then said she didn't believe in God and it was such a woerd incounter! She seemed nice and then mean. But its funny I always think that the people here are angry and getting mad at us and then I talk to S.R. and she said wow that was awesome they are so nice and I am thinking to myself. This language just sounds mean when people talk fast and don't smile. I get so dang confused! Then we met with a lady and she spoke english she said she had already been baptised and I pulled out the story in john about christ being rebaptised. It was quick and not to hard or mean but sister robinson said i was offensive :( oops

Saturday- I cried of frustration. I hid it though then i took a nap and woke up happy. Yeay for naps they are great! I love naps. We had appointments to meet with 4 people the next day and we got ditched by 2 of them. don't people know we have the key to enternal life and if they meet with us they can too. ha ha joke! but seriously!

Sunday- Good news we didn't have any crazy preachers interupt our meeting or any men hitting on me. HA I don't know if i told you abbout that but oh wow it was weird and funny! I had no clue what was going on but he wouldn't talk to my companion and he would only talk to me but it was my first day and I didn't understand anything. He was an investigator. but yeah. I sat by a member by myself and had NO clue what was being said at church. I still can't figure out if people are speaking in Russian or Ukrainian. ha ha ha Oh man! But yeah after church we went to a beautiful little town and had two lessons with less active memmbers. they were good and short. We met our goal for the week thats was nice. We had 15 lessons this week. I understood 3 of them :) (because the were in eglish) I have never been so quite in my life ha ha

Dad I went to a cute town one day and it made me think of you when we would tavel Europe. It was awesome. We grabbed some food on the street like some wrap sausage thing, Ha it was totally something we would do then we followed it with some ice cream. I took some time to send some love your way. Of course I always am doing that but It was so extra for the occasion.

I love you all so much. I love where I am and then things I am doing. I can't wait to love it more when I am actually understanding what is going on and even talking sometimes! That would be neat! But with time. Its frustrating when my comp keeps telling me I know so uch less than she did when she left the MTC. I am like yeah I know I should have stayed there for 12 more weeks then makybe I would have an idea of what is going on. ha ha oh well I am here and now I got to learn quick and I am not really sue how to do that. Chard and Jordan- What did you do to learn your mission languages? I need all the help I can get. Well iI need to go help with the reffereals. So I love you all. Feel free to e-mail me more about what is going on in your lives. Everyone is allosed to send e-mails and I think what I said about Dear Elders was wrong I don't get throse until 2 weeks later! I love you all so much thanks for the prayers I feel the strength and and using it! LOve you love you love ouy love you!

Sister Schmidt